Is Laser-Illuminated Projection the Future of 3D?

Last month I saw
the future of digital
cinema exhibition
and the future
is bright and beautiful.
With the help of NEC
Display Solution’s top-of-
the-line NC 3240S
digital cinema projection
systems, Laser Light
Engines Inc. staged a week of demonstrations
of laser-illuminated theatrical projection
at the Technicolor Interop Technology
Center in Burbank,
Calif. What was seen on the
screen was spectacular.

In the booth of the TITC
theater were two of NEC’s
flagship NC 3240S 4K DLP
cinema projectors, one lit by
a standard Xenon lamp and
the other operating with the
latest laser engine from LLE.
The demonstration included
2D content on both white and silver
screens and 3D content on a silver screen
with the laser-powered projector presenting
the left eye and the Xenon version
beaming the right.

It is important not to call LLE’s modification
of the NEC projector “laser projection”
since, as will be explained shortly, the
light emitted into the theater is not high-powered
coherent laser light. Therefore,
the technically correct appellation for this
technology is “laser illuminated” projection.

This may become significant as this technology
is rolled out. After all, based on experiences
with unshielded laser light shows
dating back to 1960s rock concerts, the
FDA still requires operators to apply for a
safety variance for each laser-source installation
above 5,000 lumens.

HOLLYWOOD INTEREST
Bill Beck, founder and executive
vice president of business development
for LLE, told me, “Hollywood’s
interest in this week of
demonstrations has been phenomenal,
with representatives from all
the studios coming to our sessions.
We predict that by the end of the
week all the film community will
be behind the adoption of laser-illuminated
projection.”

As Beck explained, one reason
is that the operational costs of laser
light sources can be significantly
lower than high-powered digital
cinema Xenon lamps, which only last about
600 hours at full power with their output
dropping to 70 percent in the first few hundred
hours and to 50 percent by the end of
life. That will make retrofitting digital cinema
projectors with laser light engines even
for 2D presentations very appealing to theater
owners as the technology evolves.

Laser Light Engines RGB systems are delivered in a
standalone rack, but can also be configured and installed
in typical industry projector pedestals having 16RU or
larger capacity.

But for 3D fans, the benefit will be finally
providing viewers with the 14 foot-lamberts
of brightness hitting their eyes, which
is the recommended level for optimal 3D
imagery. While 14 foot-lamberts is the DCI
spec for 2D, it has been very difficult for
3D theaters to achieve this level of illumination,
so 3D releases are usually color-timed
for the 4–6 foot-lamberts of their real-world
exhibition.

Achieving those 14 foot-lamberts
(named after 18th century Swiss-German
physicist Johann Heinrich Lambert) with
cost-effective technology is the key breakthrough
with this laser-illuminated projection
design. To create left/right separation,
a projector’s beam passes through the 3Denabling
technology in front of its lens. This
can be either left/right polarizing filters,
sets of color wavelength filter wheels or alternate
frame display systems. These can reduce
the brightness hitting a viewer’s eyes
by 72–90 percent. That’s why many 3D theaters
actually provide their premium ticket-paying
customers a dimmed down cinema
experience far below the optimum viewing
requirements for proper 3D.

According to Paul Panabaker, director of
product planning at LLE, in the demonstration
we saw at the Technicolor facility the
projectors were putting 17.5 foot-lamberts
of luminance on the 22-foot screen, which
allowed the intended 14 foot-lamberts to
reach the viewers’ eyes through the ReadD
glasses, which were provided.

MASTERING THE
STUMBLING BLOCKS
Laser-illuminated projection has been
attempted for 20 years, but until recently
one of the major stumbling blocks in its
theatrical acceptance has been the problem
of “speckle,” which is a shimmering or
sparkling artifact caused by microscopic
constructive and destructive interference
of the light when displaying large expanses
of the same color.

“Our solution is to convert the columnated
coherent light coming out of the laser
engine into conventional light before
it emerges from the projector,” explained
LLE’s Beck. “This directional brightness
is far more efficient than a Xenon lamp,
which means the amount of light you can
get out of a laser-illuminated projector is
not optically limited. Then, to minimize
speckle, our patented technology, which
widens the color band, lets the RGB light
diverge in multiple angles to average the
interference patterns generated by the individual
beams.”

John O’hara (L), CEO of Laser Light Engines, Inc.
and Bill Beck, founder and executive vice
president of business development

During the TITC 3D demonstration,
which included viewing clips from “Gravity,”
“The Life of Pi” and “The Last Reef” among
other films, all timed at 14 foot-lamberts, I
was fortunate to secure a seat directly in the
middle of the theater surrounded by some
of the best “golden eyes” in the digital cinema
business. Many of these experts claimed
to still see some speckle artifacts in the
movie clips, which my “golden-aged’ vision
did not detect except, perhaps when pure
color bars were projected, but they were all
enthusiastic about laser-illuminated projection’s
potential.

“This technology will enable 3D to be
seen in a way the public has never been able
to before,” said Garrett J. Smith, who was responsible
for digital mastering operations at
Paramount for more than two decades.

“This has to be the future of 3D because
viewers expect the color in 3D presentations
to look as true as it does in 2D. The
future is laser projection, no doubt about
it!” added John A Rupkalvis of StereoScope
International.

“I was very impressed by the image
brightness,” said John Cox who QCs digital
cinema packages for Shutter Ghost. “I’m often
bothered by the consistency problems
with Xenon lamps when traveling around
the studios, and we should see a much
greater consistency from laser light engines.

John T. O’Hara, president and CEO of Laser
Light Engines, said they expect to start
seeing digital cinema projectors retrofitted
with laser-illuminated light sources
up to about 45,000 lumens in large screen
venues starting in Q2 of 2014. With advanced
cooling systems, these could soar
to 70,000 lumens.

Now the question is whether Hollywood
studios will provide prints color-timed
for the hallowed grail of 14 foot-lamberts
to take full advantage of it.

Jay Ankeney is a freelance editor and
post-production consultant based in Los
Angeles. Write him at JayAnkeney@mac.com.